Interior Decorating

Things have been stressful lately and the weight of it finally had its consequences.  During the day, Kris fell asleep, and Kodi found the markers.  She decided to help our plain walls by doing a little decorating herself.  She colored on both sides of her door, all over her desk, the hutch, and her dresser, and multiple walls.  When Kris found it, he called me to warn me, and I'm glad he did.  Even when I got home from work that evening, Kyson said to me, "Mom, you don't want to go upstairs.   It's really bad."  I had prepared my mind for what I was about to see, so I believe I handled it well.  I remained calm and immediately began trying to clean it with extra strength Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.  Those erasers have saved us on numerous occasions, and I felt that they would save us again.  Well, they saved us only partially.  The erasers took the marker off the furniture, but not the walls.  I was able to get the pruple marker off most of the walls, but the green wouldn't budge.  Some people suggested trying hand sanitizer, but it started taking the paint off.  I'm going to try toothpaste as others have suggested, but at this point, I believe I have a new painting project on my hands.  At least I have a good excuse to expidite what I've been wanting to do for some time - paint the walls. That's one way to look at it - right.  Either find something good, or kill my daughter.  I thought the optimistic approach might be better.

Tea Time

While trying to clean up the kids' bedrooms and change their sheets, Kodi set up a little tea party.  She was enjoying tea time by herself, so I asked Kyson if he'd go join her.  He was a good sport, even though I could tell he didn't want to have a tea party.  He sat with her, smiled with her, and pretended to eat and drink with her.  It was pretty darn cute how they sat together and Kodi carefully held her plate and cup.  Where do kids learn these things?  It's not like we have tea time at the house.

Tumbling

When Kodi turned 3, we registered her for a tumbling class at the Rec Center.  From a very early age, she has been trying to do forward rolls back walk-overs off the furniture, and doing the splits.  We put her in a class when she was 1 or 2, but she couldn't follow instructions yet, and it wasn't rihgt for her.  Now, I think it's perfect and I'm glad we've found something she njoys so much.  It also works so well with her school schedule.  I don't know if well get so lucky next year.

Her teachers have been pushing her hard to do things on her own.  She didn't have the confidence to do some of the things on her own and would want a spot, even though she didn't need it.  She's the youngest in the class and not the best becuase of her inability to follow instructions well, but I think, and her teachers think that she has a lot of potential. 

Christmas in January

In 2011, my parents weren't around to celebrate Christmas when it was time for it on the calendar.  The poor souls were in the Bahamas playing in the sun.  We decided the best thing would be to delay Christmas into January and get together when everyone would be in town.  Bill has been working in Boise lately and it's touch-and-go when he'll be in town.  After coordinating everyone's schedule, January 19th was the first weekend we were all available to make Christmas happen, and so for weeks we were anticipating the Christmas celebration with my parents.  For me, the part I look forward to most is just getting together as a family.  That's my favorite thing.

I have to admit, I believe it was kind of nice having it later.  It didn't feel like Christmas though.  In fact, it felt weird exchanging gifts half-way through January, but it was nice for the kids to not receive everything from grandparents, and Santa on the same day.  And my dad kept us entertained with his weird purchases, usually from the DI.

My parents were incredibly generous, as always, and the kids each got one big present - Kodi got a little people Disney princess castle and Kyso got a car racetrack.  We put the track together later becuase it had so many parts, but once it was together, I couldn't get either kid away from it.  They both liked it a lot.  I'm always grateful for an excuse to get together as a family.  The Princess castle was a hit from the moment it was opened, and we put part of it together immediately becuase it was simpler to assemble.  Both presents were loved by both.

Stuck Inside

My kids are always full of new adventures to keep themselves entertained while being trapped in this cold weather.  I'm not sure what the two were doing, but I found the pictures on the camera.  It looks like they turned a plastic bin into a car for them.  Whatever they were doing, they weren't being destructive, making a mess, and they were happy.  I'm all for it.

Fun in Plain City

My cousin, Alicia, used to live in Las Vegas but moved to Utah a few years ago.  The ironic thing is that now she's only an hour away instead of 6 hours, we see her less.  I believe it's becuase we used to plan and make visits happen.  Now we think, "Oh but they're not that far away," and we keep saying that we need to get together.  Alicia and I decided that we need to start scheduling instead of always saying that we want to get together.

On January 12, we went up to see their beuatiful new home in Plain City and spend time with Alicia, Brock, and Atley.  It was a hit.  I've never seen Kodi so excited about playing.  She never has the opportunity to play with little girls who like princesses and dress-up.  It was adorable to see Atley take Kodi under her wing and help her change clothes and play.  The pair of them probably went through 7 outfits each and Kodi was in pure heaven.  Kyson made the best of things by coloring at a table or reading books.  After some time, Kyson and Atley played volleyball on the X-box connect.  He seemed to really enjoy that.

 

It was so nice to sit and chat in an informal environment, while the kids entertained themselves and caught up.  When it was time to leave, both Kyson and Kodi were looking forward to the next time we will be getting together.  The next date is on the calendar to ensure that we'll make it happen.

 

Bad News

I've been a little behind on updating lately and I went to try and catch up.  A couple of weeks ago, I took the camera SD card to get a picture off of it.  I went back to get the card, and it wasn't in the computer.  Last week, I spent an entire afternoon cleaning the study to look for the card in hopes of finding it.  It is no where.  Unfortunately, I've lost all the pictures from mid-November until mid-January. 

While that puts a damper on keeping up with my children, I'm most upset by a few things that I don't have any more.  In November, I got new pictures of all of Kris's side of the family.  We needed a new family picture so badly, and now the pictures are gone.  I took pictures of Kodi's collar bone to have record of before and after for the accident.  Those are gone.  All of the pictures I took of Christmas and Zoolights are gone.  I'm extremely grateful that it was only 6 weeks or so, but I'm really upset about the loss.  They're irreplaceable.  Perhaps this is a lesson to stay more on top of things.  I wish I could learn the lesson in a different way.